Tag Archives: chaos

Shauna and I started this blog about a month ago, and since that time we’ve talked a lot about the kinds of things we want to write about here. It’ll essentially be a melting pot of ideas, likes, dislikes, family and job stuff, and just whatever else we feel like writing about. A glimpse into our everyday lives, in other words. And I love that idea; that is exactly the kind of blog I’d want to read from someone else. One would think that, with that kind of broad outline, it’d be easy to come up with ideas for things to write about, because pretty much anything would be fair game. But such is not the case. Personally, I find myself plagued by really unhelpful thoughts, such as “you know, lots of people lead really crazy, eventful lives. What makes you think your life is interesting enough to blog about? Furthermore, what gives you the audacity to expect people to READ that blog, let alone tell other people to read it? To expect people to stop their cars in traffic to read your latest post, and to send out mass texts to every friend, relative, co-worker, and minor acquaintance they have in their phone to tell THEM to read it? Hmmm?” Make no mistake: I expect ALL of those things to happen, and since I’ve been trying to think of a topic to blog about anyway, I figure why not make this post about WHY I expect that.

Everyone has opinions, good and bad, and it’s in the nature of humans to want to share that opinion with other people. Either to find someone who agrees with you and who validates the way you feel about something, or to find someone who disagrees and maybe makes you think of something in a different way that you never would have come to on your own. However, the resources that people had to get their opinions heard used to be pretty limited and ineffective. Short of scoring a job writing an opinion column in your local newspaper, or standing on a soapbox in the town square and shouting, there was no good way to make yourself heard to a large group of people. Now, of course, it’s the easiest thing in the world to go on any social media site and say whatever is on your mind to a potential audience of millions. Anyone can start a blog or vlog. However, the ease with which you can do these things nowadays has made it clearer than ever before that not everyone has something worth saying. Not everyone has an opinion that should be spoken aloud (and while we’re on the subject, there is such a thing as a wrong opinion. We’re taught in school that that’s not the case, but OF COURSE it is. “The Godfather is a bad movie” or “Donald Trump is a good president” would be examples of wrong opinions). And so, to return to the point: why should you read this blog? There are a million blogs you could be reading right now. Why this one?

Shauna and I are real people. We have small victories and defeats everyday. We have to deal with chaos at our job, and then come home and deal with more (and often far worse) chaos. Our kids are cool most of the time, but occasionally they are horrible, smelly beasts that consume or destroy everything in sight. We have money, and then we pay bills and buy groceries and we have no money. We communicate amazingly most of the time, but sometimes we don’t, and it sucks for a while and we deal with that. We live in a house that has issues which we either get fixed or (much more likely) learn how to work around. We make plans for our future, and then have to figure out how to make those plans a reality, and in the process of that sometimes our plans get changed, or disintegrate completely. We struggle with health issues, appointments, anxiety over whether we’re spending enough time with our kids, what to have for dinner, where does all the fucking shredded cheese go because we just bought 3 bags like 2 days ago and it’s fucking GONE already?!? We deal with all of these things, and a lot more, every day. And if we’re dealing with them…then you’re dealing with them, too. These are the things we all have to face every day. Every. Day. This is Real Life. And if you can read this blog and see that we have faced an issue that you’ve already faced, or are currently facing, and if we can convince you that you WILL get through that issue and come out on the other side laughing…well, there you go. That’s “why this one”.

The twist ending to this post, which anyone could have seen coming, is that I wrote this to convince myself why it’s necessary to write it just as much as to convince you (and the tens of thousands of people you’re going to send our way) to read it. A couple weeks ago, on a Saturday night, Shauna and I had to work till about 9 PM. We got home and watched tv with the kids for a while. Around 11 or so, Shauna investigated a weird smell and discovered that a room in our basement was filled about ankle deep with sewage. Every time a sink, the dishwasher, the clothes washer, the shower, the toilets had drained for at least a few days, it had been going directly into this room. Some phone calls were made, and someone came out to unplug the drain (never giving us a good explanation for why it had happened in the first place so that we could, you know, prevent it from happening again), and left us to deal with the disgusting mess that was left behind. There wasn’t much that could really be done that night (by this time it was around 3 AM; we had to get up at 7 to work a 10 hour shift). We eventually got it taken care of and all is well now. I threw in this quick story to make the point that this type of thing might have been a devastating, apocalyptic event in another household. In ours, not so much. We took it in stride; the house smelled like shit (literally) for a few days, and then it didn’t, and we’ll probably barely remember it happened before long. You get through it. And you laugh.